Chappell earns 2nd career weekly Big Ten award

The Bloomington native Ben Chappell isn’t exactly a self-congratulating figure — even when he’s asked to talk about winning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honors.

“It’s a great honor,” Chappell said Monday during the team’s weekly press conference. “I guess that means I had a good week. We’ll try and do it again this week.”

The fifth-year senior quarterback finished 32-of-42 with 366 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions in the IU football team’s 38-21 win at Western Kentucky on Saturday. It marked the sixth-highest total of passing yards in a game by any player in IU history.

Chappell is now a two-time winner of the weekly award. He won co-honors last season after tossing three touchdowns to go with 333 yards in a win against Illinois.

Back in the saddle

After an odd schedule left the Hoosiers opening the season with a Thursday night game against Towson on Sept. 2 before entering a bye week, the team faced a 16-day layoff between games — unusual for the start of a season.

This week, however, the Hoosiers return to normalcy in their preparation with Akron coming to Bloomington for a 7 p.m. kick-off on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

“That bye week was rough,” said sophomore defensive tackle Larry Black Jr. “Like coach said, we had practice that kind of felt like spring practice where you really weren’t looking forward to going out and playing another opponent.”

The Hoosiers will finish the regular season without another break, playing 11 straight games. IU did not have an open week during the 2009 season.

Lynch: coaching profession isn’t so stressful

A day after fellow Big Ten and Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio was admitted to an East Lansing, Mich., hospital for a heart attack, IU coach Bill Lynch was asked what to make of such an occurrence within the coaching profession.

“I don’t think our profession is any different than any others,” Lynch said. “I think we all do the best job we can, but I think that in everybody’s life. ...there’s stresses, and some times of the year are tougher than others. I’m not one to think the coaching profession creates problems like that.”

Lynch was then asked if throwing chewing gum, as he did during last year’s contest at Michigan, was his way to deal with the stresses of the football life.

“That might be one way,” Lynch said, laughing.

Run-blocking focus hasn’t changed

While Chappell seemed to have a bit of a field day about the Western Kentucky secondary — thanks in part to some terrific blocking from his offensive line — getting the running game working never really materialized for the Hoosiers on Saturday.

Six Hoosiers made rushing attempts during the win for an even total of 100 net yards. Thanks to a 24-yard touchdown run, redshirt freshman running back Nick Turner manufactured the most yards of any back with 33.

“I don’t want to sit here and say after two games that we’re a better pass-blocking team than a run-blocking team,” Lynch said. “I think in a lot of ways pass-blocking is easier than run-blocking.”

And while protecting the quarterback may be a bit easier in Lynch’s mind, he’s certainly not going to back down on improving his team’s effectiveness at creating holes for running backs.

“I don’t think it’s because we work on one thing more than the other,” Lynch said. “I think we’ll get there with the run game, I really do. I sat in all of the offensive meetings this morning, and there was no talk of ‘Well, we’ve got to try this or try that.’ We’ve just got to keep doing it, and we’ve got to do it a little bit better.”